You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense - Charles Bukowski [32]
all that I can say to them
is
show me more leg
show me more ass—
that’s all you (or I) have
while
it lasts
and for this common and obvious truth
they screech at me:
MOTHERFUCKER SEXIST PIG!
as if that would stop the way fruit trees
drop their fruit
or the ocean brings in the coni and
the dead spores of the Grecian
Empire
but I feel no grief for being called something
which
I am not;
in fact, it’s enthralling, somehow, like a good
back rub
on a frozen night
behind the ski lift at
Aspen.
working
ah, those days when I
ran them
in and out of my
shabby apartment.
god, I was a hairy
ugly
thing
and I backed them
all onto the
springs
flailing
away
I was the mindless
drunken ape
in a sad and
dying
neighborhood.
but strangest
of all
were the
new and continuous
arrivals:
it was a
female
parade
and
I exulted
pranced and
pounced
with hardly
an idea
of what
it
meant.
it was a well-
remembered bed-
room
painted a strange
blue.
and
most of the
ladies
left just before
noon
about the time
the mailman
arrived.
he spoke to me
one day, “my god,
man, where do you
get them all?”
“I don’t know,” I
told him.
“pardon me,” he went
on, “but you don’t
exactly look like
God’s gift to
women, how do you
do it?”
“I don’t know,”
I said.
and it was
true: it just
happened and I
did it
in my blue
bedroom
with my
dead mother’s
best lace table
linen
tacked up
over the
window.
I was a
fucking
fool.
over done
he had somehow located me again—he was on the telephone—talking
about the old days—
wonder whatever happened to Michael or Ken or
Julie Anne?—
and remember…?
—then
there were his present problems—
—he was a talker—he had always been a
talker—
and I had been a
listener
I had listened because I hadn’t wanted to
hurt him
by telling him to shut up
like the others
did
in the old
days
now
he was back
and
I held the phone out
at arm’s length
and could still hear the
sound—
I handed the phone to my girlfriend and
she listened for a
while—
finally
I took the phone and told him—
hey, man, we’ve got to stop, the meat’s burning
in the oven!
he said, o.k., man, I’ll call you
back—
(one thing I remembered about my
old buddy: he was good for his
word)
I put the phone back on the
receiver—
—we don’t have any meat in the
oven, said my
girlfriend—
—yes, we do, I told her,
it’s
me.
our laughter is muted by their agony
as the child crosses the street as deep sea divers
dive as the painters paint—
the good fight against terrible odds is the vindication
and the glory as the swallow rises toward
the moon—
it is so dark now with the sadness of
people
they were tricked, they were taught to expect the
ultimate when nothing is
promised
now young girls weep alone in small rooms
old men angrily swing their canes at
visions as
ladies comb their hair as
ants search for survival
history surrounds us
and our lives
slink away
in
shame.
murder
competition, greed, desire for fame—
after great beginnings they mostly
write when they don’t want to write, they write to
order, they write for Cadillacs and younger
girls—and to pay off
old wives.
they appear on talk shows, attend parties
with their peers.
most go to Hollywood, they become snipers and
gossips
and have more and more affairs with younger
and younger girls and/or
men.
they write between Hollywood and the parties,
it’s timeclock writing
and in between the panties and/or the
jockstraps
and the cocaine
many of them manage to screw up with the
IRS.
between old wives, new wives, newer and
newer girls (and/or)
all their royalties and residuals—
the hundreds of thousands of
dollars—
are now suddenly
debts.
the writing becomes a useless
spasm
a jerk-off of a once
mighty
gift.
it happens and happens and
continues to:
the mutilation of talent
the gods seldom
give
but so quickly
take.
what am I doing?
got to stop battling these wild speed jocks on the freeway as we
roar through hairline openings with